Why SEO takes time, but is worth every penny

Why SEO takes time, but is worth every penny

Business owners have always been frustrated at how long SEO can take to improve their rankings. Some are even deterred from using SEO because they think the time spent waiting for results isn’t worth it. We’re here to explain why it is worth your time and money.

What is SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the activity of attempting to improve search engine ratings for a website or business. SEO includes keywords or phrases that relate to your business. For example, if you want to rank well when a potential customer searches “Best ice cream in Portland,” you need to be using that phrase in your posts and on your site. Over time the continued usage of that phrase in your content, will improve your rankings. And if your SEO is done correctly, and with patience, when someone searches “Best ice cream in Portland” your business should be one of the first results they see, if not the top result.

The goal of SEO is to improve the visibility of your site and business, making it easier for potential customers to find you in a competitive market rather than your competitors. It’s the goal of driving more traffic to your site, and converting that traffic into customers.

Why does it take time?

One of the most important things in SEO is analyzing your competition before you get started. Typically, you will have competitors that are ranking higher than you, and it can take some time before you get to an equal rank. Getting a competitive analysis is key in understanding what works within your business market, and how well it’s working for your competitors.

Supplementing your site with new content continuously may be a hard thing to do, but it’s necessary. Starting a blog is a great idea, it’s fresh new content that you can post to drive more traffic to your site. Blog posts are also great ways to sneak in keywords. Write a blog post about why you’re the “Best ice cream in Portland.” It will drive traffic and interest. Even further, blogs are great content that you can turn around and post on social media outlets to drive even more traffic.

That’s part of a process called link building, which takes lots of time and patience. You have to build links to your site and content over time. Google analytics, which is the deciding king of rankings so to speak, also becomes wary of some links if they gain traction too quickly. So you want to take your time, and build up traffic over time, and you want to do it organically. When you have great organic search results, it means that your site is ranking well because of its relevance to a searched term. Non-organic search are sites that are ranking well because they’re paid advertisements, and someone literally paid to get them there.

Take away

As you can see, there are ways to do SEO overnight and get a site ranking well, but those ways don’t last, and aren’t generated organically. Google can tell what is organic and what isn’t, and all your quick fix efforts to boost will only work for so long before you drop in rankings and have to start over again.

The best way to see rankings improve and stay there is to do good SEO, which does take time. But once it’s going and you have a plan, your rankings will improve slowly but surely. Good SEO is time consuming, it takes a lot of effort to do it right, and do in an ongoing capacity. Time is money, and SEO is time. If you’re looking to be a top dog in your industry or market, it is absolutely necessary.